In a comic strip, the author only actually reads the text that is provided. The frames could jump from a woman carrying her grocery bags through a hallway in an appartment building, to an image of the same woman stabbed, dead on the floor… (Sorry that my first thought was so violent!) But to get the point, you need to ask, what does the reader ASSUME happened to the lady? General human perception leads us to assume that someone stabbed the lady as she was walking. But this was not actually told to the reader. It was imagined within the gap/ space between the two frames.

But how do people come to make these assumptions? I believe that our personal assumptions are connected to our upbringing and social relations and culture etc… In my instance I would assume a criminal stabbed the lady to steal her money because they are the sort of stories I hear on the news. But some people may automatically think a family member did it, or she did it herself- these two examples however rely mores on already learned knowledge rather than cultural factors. But in any case, it is the reader who has decided the cause to the effect for the story. Not the author.

This same thing applies in all different types of media. Take non-linear movie plots for example. Think of a movie that shows scenes that have occurred at the very end or the actual narrative that are shown at the beginning of the film, leaving the viewer to create their own assumptions on what happened.

Did you just turn that frog into a Prince? I, as your author certainly did not! You have such an imagination!!! 🙂